Mom, 7-year-old daughter survive being struck by a train in Milford (video)

Susan Misur, Register Staff

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, May 29, 2011

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Margaret Syc talks about a collision involving her daughter and granddaughter that took place on a private drive with a train crossing off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

Margaret Syc talks about a collision involving her daughter and granddaughter that took place on a private drive with a train crossing off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

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MTA personnel investigate an area of track where a car was hit by a train at a train crossing on a private drive off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

MTA personnel investigate an area of track where a car was hit by a train at a train crossing on a private drive off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

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A car involved in a collision with a train lies down an embankment from the tracks near a private drive off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

A car involved in a collision with a train lies down an embankment from the tracks near a private drive off of Herbert St. in Milford. (Arnold Gold/Register)

Mom, 7-year-old daughter survive being struck by a train in Milford (video)

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MILFORD -- A mother and her daughter, 7, are in stable condition after their car was hit and pushed down a ditch by a Metro-North Railroad passenger train Sunday afternoon.

Family members say Vicki Buker-Besse, 40, and her daughter were hit around 3:15 p.m. after leaving a holiday picnic at Buker-Besse's father's house, which is about 150 feet from the Herbert Street railroad crossing.

The locomotive was then sent to the Milford train station, where its nearly 100 passengers, none of whom reported any injuries, boarded another train.

Buker-Besse's family members allege that the train did not blow a whistle to warn any nearby cars it was approaching the crossing and that it may have been speeding. Buker-Besse's father, Carroll Buker, said his daughter grew up in that home and knows to stop, look and listen for oncoming trains at the crossing and had also left the picnic with her windows rolled down.

However, Sam Zambuto, an MTA spokesperson, said that according to the preliminary investigation, the conductor did sound a horn and officers have not yet identified what caused the crash.

According to family members, Buker-Besse's car was upside down when it landed in a ditch next to the railroad tracks, and her daughter was able to crawl out from the backseat where she had been sitting. She ran toward her grandfather's house, yelling to call 911 and that she was unable to wake up her mother.

Buker-Besse at first did not respond when family members and a neighbor ran to her car and tried speaking with her. But she soon started moving her hand and allowed them to pull her out of the car when they pried the door open.